Heart-ache: Charlie Crist says it’s hard being an independent

(The Miami Herald) - Gov. Charlie Crist, the Republican-turned-independent candidate for Senate, had this to say about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's new ad campaign against him. (The chamber is backing Republican Senate nominee Marco Rubio, the former House Speaker.)

"This is hard,'' he said at a press conference in Miami. "This is not an easy journey to be on. It's difficult to run as an independent. I mean, tomorrow I'm going to have several million dollars dumped on me by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for my opponent, Speaker Rubio. That just gives you one bit of evidence about how frightened they are that this change might occur."

The ad attacks compares Crist to former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerrry and calls him a flip-flopper on the issues. "It's not accurate,'' Crist said. "The reality is that I think about issues in contrast to my opponents. They are the partisan nominees of their respective parties. They're being told what to do by talking points all day long, and if they vary from that page, the party bosses get mad at them."